local news

A ‘fulfilling’ journey

Rarely — if ever — in all my years walking this good Earth have I enjoyed a “fulfilling” time away from home.

I had one of those experiences during the past month on the road.

My wife passed away from brain cancer on Feb. 3. I wanted to get out of the house for a while to clear my head. Toby the Puppy and I put a lot of miles on my truck … 6,629 of them to be precise. We saw many family members and friends on our trek to the Pacific Coast.

I have received a number of gratifying responses from those who read this blog. I have written of my pain and the journey I took to help alleviate it. Kathy Anne and I were together for 52 years and her illness came on quickly and it advanced in a savage fashion.

Some of you have expressed thanks for sharing my journey with you and those expressions mean more to me than I can possibly articulate in this brief post.

I have proclaimed that I have accomplished my mission by clearing my head of the confusion that overwhelmed me along with the rest of my family. I am thinking more clearly now about how to proceed with my future plans, which I acknowledge remain a work in progress.

My heart still hurts. I won’t try to repair it overnight. Or even in the next few months or even longer than that. I have sought to develop coping mechanisms to deal with the pain that I expect will flare without warning.

I also have learned that I need not apologize for those moments when I weep. So … to those who read these words and with whom I will have personal contact, you are hereby advised to expect these episodes.

All of this my way of declaring that my journey was fulfilling and was the type of adventure that my beloved bride would agree is necessary to cleanse one’s soul.

I am glad to be home.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Admiration grows for Toby

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas — I have developed even more admiration for my buddy, Toby the Puppy, as our monthlong journey through one-third of the United States of America reaches its conclusion.

You know already that he’s a road warrior to the max. I have discovered that he not only loves to travel long distances, but he also maintains enough patience to be loved-on by small children he encounters.

Toby the Puppy and I attended a flag football tonight at Dripping Springs High School. We were there actually to watch my great-niece, Riley, perform as a cheerleader for her middle school team that was playing flag football.

My puppy became a star with the kids in the stands. One little boy, about 5 years of age, asked me if he could pet him; I gave him the OK. He followed Toby the Puppy and me to our seats in the stands.

A little girl, about 2, wanted to pet him, too. Sure thing. Dad was nearby. She was extremely gentle, reminding me a bit of when Toby joined our family and our granddaughter, Emma, was a toddler; Emma loves animals and she handled Toby the Puppy with extreme love and care … which she carries over now that she’s (gulp!) 10 years old.

Our journey ends tomorrow. We shove off from the Hill Country for our house in Collin County. It’s been a marvelous trek for me … for reasons I have detailed already.

The journey that will cover 7,000 miles when it’s all over also filled me with admiration for my companion. Toby the Puppy has helped me along the way in a manner I am trying to figure out.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

‘New normal’ looks good

LUBBOCK, Texas — The “new normal” has become a welcome sight for this traveler upon returning to Texas after nearly a month on the road.

I am talking about gasoline prices.

There once was a time when spending $3 per gallon for gas would send me into fits of apoplexy. No more, gang.

I spent $6 for gas in California; $4 for gas in Oregon and Washington. Occasionally I would spot a gas dealer pitching gas for $3.99 per gallon.

I’m almost at the house in North Texas and today I topped off my truck’s gas tank at $3.19 per gallon. Good grief! I felt like the dealer was giving the go-juice away.

That’s the new normal for us who live in parts of the country where the cost of just about everything is less than it is in, say, the Pacific Coast, or in Hawaii, or the upper Atlantic Coast.

I noticed a billboard in California that seemed to boast about the fact that California charges motorists more than $1 per gallon in fuel taxes, which accounts for the unwieldly price of gasoline. Other states tax motorists far less per gallon.

I’m glad to be home, or at least closer to home than I was about two weeks ago. The price of gasoline causes far less sticker shock these days now that many of us have become accustomed to the new normal.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Sen. Feinstein should quit

I am hereby joining others in suggesting that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, needs to resign her Senate seat.

She’s missed far too many votes in recent weeks because of illness. Feinstein already has declared that this is her final term in the Senate. Fine. Except that she’s unable to do the job for which she is drawing a handsome, six-figure salary.

A resignation would clear the way for Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint a new senator, someone who can show up for the work and do the fundamental task we demand of our elected representatives. Which is to vote on important policy matters.

Feinstein has enjoyed a distinguished career in the Senate after serving as San Francisco mayor. However, her time is up.

A more vibrant senator would enable the Senate to enact legislation that could stall if one of the Democrats in the majority is unable to do her job. Let us remember, too, that the Democrats’ hold on the Senate majority is mighty tenuous.

Resign, Sen. Feinstein … and thank you for your service to the country.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Another leg completed

SANTA FE, N.M. — The longest leg of this extraordinary journey is complete. I am pooped. So is Toby the Puppy.

The next two legs will be pieces of cake compared to what we just endured. What was that?

We left this morning at 5. Our trip from Richfield, Utah to a campsite just north of Santa Fe was all of 570 miles. My Ford Ranger guidance system said it would take about eight hours of drive time. It took us 11 hours.

We had to get some shut-eye along the way, Toby the Puppy and I had to relieve ourselves, we needed gas and I stopped for lunch in Cortez, Colo.

My bride, Kathy Anne, and I lived in West Texas for 23 years before moving to Princeton in 2019. During our time out yonder, we learned one irrefutable truth about that part of the world: In order to get anywhere, you have to drive some distance. Amarillo is a long way from most destinations, so we accustomed ourselves to driving a while to get to where we needed to go.

Those trips, though, rarely required us to drive 570 miles.

I’m going to see friends near Lubbock and then family in greater Austin before I point my buggy toward the house.

This journey has been worth the effort. I’ll have more to say about it later. Just know that I believe it was the correct course of action to take.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Mind is clearing

RICHFIELD, Utah — Am I allowed to declare “mission accomplished” regarding this journey that is winding to a close?

I set out to clear my mind and to remove myself from the closeness of the tragedy that befell our family on Feb. 3 with the passing of my beloved bride, Kathy Anne, to the ravages of cancer.

I believe my mind is considerably clearer now than it was when I set out on March 15 for points west. I can think of my bride without welling up. Talking about her, though, remains a challenge, as my heart remains severely damaged. I am working on that, but I cannot predict when I’ll turn that corner.

My friends and family have told me not to rush it. I won’t. I might never be free of the tears. I accept that, too, given that we spent 52 years together, 51 of them as husband and wife.

I will miss Kathy Anne forever and beyond. However, I am going to declare that my noggin is much clearer today than it was when Toby the Puppy and I launched our journey.

I am ready to go home.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Judicial activism anyone?

RICHFIELD, Utah — A federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, has offered yet another example of how the MAGA cult of the Repubican Party has turned traditional GOP orthodoxy on its ear.

The standard GOP mantra used to be that the party hated activist judges, that they shouldn’t “legislate from the bench.”

Well, welcome to the new world of GOP judicial activism.

It reared its repulsive puss in the form of U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who ruled this past week that the abortion drug mifepristone shouldn’t be used to terminate a pregnancy. He suspended its use, which the Food and Drug Administration approved more than 20 years ago, and which women for decades have relied on to end health-endangering pregnancies.

I write this blog while sitting in a community that likely endorses the judge’s activist stance. No worries. I’ll be gone in the morning.

To suggest that the judge has launched a legislative battle from the bench is to be guilty of grotesque understatement.

The judge is a Donald Trump appointee. He succeeded an iconic figure in Texas Panhandle judicial circles, the late Judge Mary Lou Robinson, who likely never — not in a million years — would have tossed out judicial precedent in the manner exhibited by her successor.

Kacsmaryk has done the dirty work of the GOP members of the MAGA cult in Congress. Never mind that most Republicans oppose the judge’s decision, along with a significant majority of all Americans, who want to protect a woman’s reproductive rights.

The Justice Department has filed an appeal with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and is preparing to take the matter to the top of the judicial food chain, the U.S. Supreme Court.

As for Judge Kacsmaryk, he has tossed aside GOP political precedent by invoking the most judicially activist position possible in wiping out women’s rights.

I am fairly confident that the women, along with many milliions of other Americans, are going to have their say when the 2024 election rolls around.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Sunrise takes on poignancy

ALONG U.S. HIGHWAY 20, Ore. — This sunrise greeted me today as I sped along the roadway toward Burns.

I have to tell you something that many of you likely will presume about me … which is that a tragic event in my life will require me to look differently at the sky when these events occur.

My bride’s passing from cancer in early February shattered my heart, but when I saw this sunrise today, I thought immediately of Kathy Anne.

The sunrise didn’t mend my heart, but it did give me pleasant form of pause.

I cannot prove what I am about to say, but please know it is what I believe, which is that I felt her gazing on Toby the Puppy and me as we moved along in the light of the dawn.

It filled my heart with a bit of sadness, but also with happy memories of the life we shared on this Earth. I also was filled with hope at the life we will share in eternity.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Join another state? Huh?

BURNS, Ore. — I have just breezed through a portion of my home state that appears to rival Texas — my new “home” state — as a hotbed for right-wing lunatics.

Granted, I only have read bits and pieces about this so-called “movement” in Oregon, so I don’t know many of the details.

It goes like this: Some residents of Oregon’s eastern counties want to detach themselves from Oregon and join the neighboring state to east, Idaho. I have no clue how they would accomplish such a thing, whether a statewide referendum — which is legal in Oregon — ever would pass. Do they do it legislatively?

It seems the folks in places like Malheur, Harney and Lake counties feel more akin to politicians in Boise than those who work in Salem. It seems the folks in places like Malheur, Harney and Lake counties feel more akin to politicians in Boise than those who work in Salem. Oregon is strongly blue; Idaho is just as strongly red. Oregon favors Democratic candidates for president; Idaho favors Republicans. Get it?

I saw only one outright political demonstration while breezing through Burns; it was a “Trump 2020” sign on the side of someone’s house, with the subtitle “Keep America Great.” I guess the folks didn’t get the memo, which is that Trump lost that election and that America is still the greatest nation on Earth.

There’s a tiny bit of similarity to those in the Texas Panhandle who want that part of the state to break off from the rest of it, believing that Austin doesn’t listen to the needs of those who live so far away. Well, they have chosen to ignore all the highway work that the Texas Department of Transportation is doing to improve rights-of-way in Amarillo and elsewhere.

And, of course, we have the secessionist cabal that wants Texas to become — once again — an independent nation. Umm, can’t do it. It’s illegal, you know?

The Oregon “rebellion” never will see the light of day. For that, I am glad. I like the state being the ninth-largest geographically in the nation. Besides, the wackos in eastern Oregon do a good job of reminding those who live in the rest of the state of their presence.

It’s best to keep everyone in plain sight.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Finally … the sun shines!

WINNEMUCCA, Nev. — Take a good look at the picture you see with this brief post. What don’t you see?

Time’s up! You don’t see a cloud in the sky. Nothin’, man! Clear blue sky from horizon to horizon to horizon to horizon.

It took me a while on this westward journey Toby and the Puppy have taken, but we finally freed ourselves from the dreary rain that has inundated California and the Pacific Northwest. We were unable to lay eyes on the great peaks of the Cascades. Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams, Mount Jefferson, the Three Sisters? All were hidden by clouds.

We had to travel past the Central Oregon Cascades to see what I fondly refer to as El Sol. I don’t know what the future of this journey holds for us, but I am going to remain hopeful that we can avoid much of the misery that has soaked by home state of Oregon, Washington and much of California.

The mountains in the photo, by the way, stand in northern Nevada and can be seen in the place where we’re spending the night before heading on to our next stop in southern Utah.

Let me be clear about another point: I had planned to drive along U.S. Highway 50, billed as the “Loneliest Highway in America.” I will offer a differing point of view. Highway 50 will have to go some to beat U.S. Highway 20 east from Bend to Burns.

I didn’t count them, but my best guess is that we saw maybe a dozen other vehicles on the highway between those two cities. No fuel stations. No public restrooms. No eateries.

Not a single thing out there but a few vehicles … plus Toby the Puppy and me.

Oh, but I do love the open road.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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